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Bit worried about the game, as Arsenal have been on fire recently, and if we get the Gunners performing like they did against Spurs and Milan it could be a long night. I do think the best hope is to pack the midfield and drop Cisse for this game and play the extra midfielder.

Hopefully we can keep it tight and not play like kids like we did against Spurs

Considering we have been playing like a bunch of muppets for the past 2 months and arsenal are flying it isn't going to be pleasant.
Gone are the days like we played in the first half of the season. Constant pressure, decent passing and good finishing.
Our players play like it is job done, when that couldn't be any further from the truth.
I hope they pull their socks up and actually try and win this game.
Let's face it. When we play at our best, we can beat anyone.

Krul did enough to gain us a point with a little help from Simpson's goal line clearance and Colo's defending. Williamson needs to gtfo this team asap. Terrible marking for the first goal. And Shola over Cisse?! What is this bizarro world AP livess in?

Totally gutted that we lost and the way it was lost with the amount of time left, it proves we don't have a big enough squad when it comes to the defence, Saylor got himself injured ages ago and we look bloody awful at the back since, a CD has to be a priority and in the meantime we should play one of the kids at CD instead of Williamson, as Colo is getting dragged around to cover him.

I said on another thread I would have started Guthrie instead of Obertan as Guthrie would have offered a bit more graft in the midfield. Our form is totally cr@p, and we need to start picking up points quick otherwise the brilliant start of the season would be wasted.

Suppose if you look at some of the games we have then we should be able to pick up some points as I can't see many teams keeping that much control as Arsenal did

Arsenal are in decent form at the minute so we cant be too disheartened by this performance away from home!

HBA was excellent in the first half but faded away in the second although he tracked back and defended far more than usual which is what i have criticised him of recently!

Maybe the penny has finally dropped and he now realises that if he helps out the team then he'll be in the team!

I've openly blamed williamson for recent results and again he was poor he was to blame for the first goal and looked lost whenever the ball came near him in the box!

Colo was strong again but i wish he would just stay in the centre sometimes instead of helping out the fullbacks so much, if and when they got beat and the ball was centred williamson just stood there and only reacted once a arsenal player had picked it up or Simpson and come and covered.

Everyone is saying CB is the main priority and i think the club already know this, i would bring in a quality CB to challenge Saylor and also a young lad to take up the 4th spot, Willo isn't premier league standard and should be moved on in the summer.

Obertan was hopeless i've defended him in the past but when you have an ex team mate saying he's playing in his favourite position and he plays that badly you cant defend him, we recalled Vukic for the game and he would have probably been a better choice than Obertan as would Gosling or we could ahve played Cisse up front with Ba just behind him or Ba up front with Ameobi behind him or vice versa.

Im sorry like, but do we have fans or just critics. We know we need a CB but its not just there. FB is a problem too so lets just see what we can do in the summer.

Ive noticed it at the matches lately, fans moaning at Williamson. Do you think getting on any players back is going to help the matter. No. He is what he is and probably deep down knows he is at best going to be 4th choice come next season. Or at worst moved on. I think Williamson was better last season and that probably has something to do with have a more settled back 4 with Jose being a regular.

You can see just looking the table at how close this league is in all areas.

I was gutted with the loss but it would have been a hard fought point at best. We were playing probably the form side at the moment at home. What did people expect. We have a run of games coming up that on paper we could clock the points up but we need the fans behind us as well.

The first goal was Santon's fault, not Williamson's. RVP will beat 99/100 CBs 1v1. Colo couldn't help because he was out doing Santon's job as Davide was too terrified of Walcott to get close to him.

I dare say Cisse is still carrying the injury. Just a guess.

I suspect that our management doesn't understand the importance of a good CB to this squad because:

-we've needed one since Saylor went down in December
-we weren't even linked believably to a defender until the last couple days of January
-we wouldn't go above 2M for Mariappa if you believe the rumors; Ridgwell moved for an estimated 4M; Samba did ultimately move; Wolves got Bassong on loan FFS!

So please don't imply that it's pure carping if you criticize the club for not getting a CB.

Well we needed a CB since last summer, not just since Saylor went down.

The Mariappa deal was a little disappointing but we now stick to our guns. If not you will end up with your pants being pulled down.

If West Brom want to pay 4m for him then crack on. Samba refused to play then went for over 12 mill. Dont get me started with Bassong. Its well discussed at how he went on when we went down and he is doing a cracking job for Wolves.

Like I have said, this is how we do things now and Im sure we have a list of players to get over the line in the summer. January window is a different kettle of fish.

Its like the striker thing. F00king moaning about how we need one, didnt get one, Ashley is a big fat f00k. When we do bring one in under the radar the moaners are not like "well done, great job" its all "f00king about time but their is still 25 mill of the Carroll money to spend".
Same as every window when Tiote, Colo, Krul....are going to be sold. Funny they are still here, but again, very little credit.

My pal text me before moaning about the fans. He summed it up by calling most of ours f00king @#$%& with short memories. Two years ago in the Championship and now talking about Champions league or shoe ins for a Europa spot.

Well put biffins I agree, this season has been a huge sucess, remember almost all pundits predicted relegation for us this season.

People complaining about Pardew saing he hasnt been up to it, pardew has done a great job for us. Saing he isn't up to it tactically, well if thats the case why are we where we are in the league? Simple luck? no way.

Would people really be happy if we had spent 2-3m on a CB who are no better than williamson when in the summer we can go get soemone better to push the main two. And then there is williamson aww we should get rid etc ect. Yes he isnt as good as saylor or colo but squad players you cannot expect to have 22 or more great first choice players at every club, 3rd and 4th choice people for a position cannot be expected to be as good as the first team.

Then theres the carroll issues that keeps creeping up, well we have signed two strikers since he left both of who I'd prefer over him atm, especially Ba.

Although i dont tend to agree with your posts i can usually see where you are coming from but your last post makes me think that you've either had a bad knock to the head or somebody else wrote it!

Santon did have a torrid time against walcott, with the form he's in walcott will beat 99/100 lb's and they probably expected this and so Colo was going out to help when he could! They probably didn't know Williamson would be so easily brushed to the side without any effort or just stand like a rabbit startled by headlights everytime colo left him alone!

I suspect the management does understand the importance of a good CB to this squad because:

- we wouldn't spend the required 4m for either Mariappa who has never played at this level and has only ever attracted interest from ourselves and Wigan and Ridgewell who has shown over the last few seasons that he is not a PL player! Had we gone out and blown 4m on either of these then you would ahve been the first to criticise AP, MA, and DL for buying from a lower league!

- how many of our recent transfers have been publicised before it went through, the press only found out about Cisse when he landed at the airport!
So any players being linked would ahve been pure speculation anyway!

- bassong left under a cloud and hasn't really done much at spurs and isn't really doing much at wolves, would he have done much here, with the hostility towards him it would never have been a sucess and i very much doubt the club or the player would have wanted him back for this very reason!

we've all known since last summer that we needed a new CB but if the ones we go after aren't available or our valuation is below the clubs valuation then its better to wait than waste money on somebody who is no better than what we already have!

Fair point but the consequence is that our defense is average to poor lately and that is the responsibility of the people at the club who handle personnel decisions. It has caused us to drop points. It will cause us to drop further points and may cost the club several million in placement bonuses. They do deserve some criticism for that.

An analogy I've used before: if you were starving and kept insisting that 5 pounds is too much for a loaf of bread, the fact that you may be right about that wouldn't be much consolation after you starve to death.

For guys very much into AshleyCo's sangfroid when it comes to the books, you sure are letting your emotions dictate whether or not you'd have Bassong in the squad. The reality is on the last day of the window, I'd have had anyone who would give Williamson some competition at a decent price. We may well lose more than 4M in placement bonuses over our defense-not even to mention deepening the squad on principle.

I can accept that our front office gambled that not signing a CB wouldn't hurt our results too much even though I disagree. What bothers me is when people bend over backwards and tie themselves in rhetorical knots to insist this wasn't a gamble and has no potential downside. That's ridiculous. You can support an institution and not agree with everything it does. Blind support doesn't tend to convince anyone of your loyalty but rather tempts them to deceive and manipulate you.

Of course its not an accusation. There are very few fans on this site with that sort of crack. If I had something to say I would my pal.

I also dont feel that people have blind loyalty towards the organisation. Maybe the team but not the owners. As Ive said numerous times I am willing to go with their plan as numerous other plan A B C D's..... havnt worked.

Unfortunately for some, Im a glass half full type of person who accepts that we are not going to win every game. Like the Ben Arfa situation this season. How many fans have been slating AP for not playing him. People have pinned their hopes on him they want him in all the time regardless. I on the other hand could see that he wasnt the be all and end all and could do with a kick up the ar.se. In my eyes AP has handle him pretty well and we could be seeing the benefit now. A lot of fans though just see the negative and still slate Pardew for not playing him sooner. "Were would we be now if he had played every week/sooner". Well thats all ifs and buts but Im not sure you would have had the work rate he put in in the last two games if he had been treat like the huffy child he can be. I dont think so.

The club did make a mistake by not strenghening the defence in january but in all honesty who was their to bring in! We were interested in mariappa and ridgewell both were valued at more than we valued them at, it wouldn't just be the 4million that we paid there would have been agent fees signing on fees and a hefty wage to pay and then we potentially could be stuck with a player not good enough for the team taking up wages and a squad place!

Therefore the next possibility is to bring in a player on loan, bassong was the only player who was openly available and he was the wrong player not for footballing reasons but because of the history between him and the club!

Like Biffins i'm a optomistic kind of person and i can see the good in everything, that doesn't mean i've blind loyalty to the club as a whole and can see their failings and ctiticise this when necessary, i do not hate the current ownership and can see what they are trying to achieve and why they are doing it the way they are, many people cant see past their hatred of MA and his regime to see what is happening at this club! The same goes with AP, he knows far more about football, tactics and players than any of us on here and if he's not playing HBA then it is because he can see what some of us can but many fans cant, other than the last 2 games HBA doesn't play in the team, he's on his own little adventure on the pitch!

Ridgwell = "hefty" wages? I doubt it. He'd want English market rate. I don't think WBA have him on 60K/week. It's not like he wasn't good enough-Mariappa was the level for which we aimed. Or, if you want to go for the ring, sign Vertonghen.

Are you guys completely pleased with AP's tactics? "Whatever he's doing must be right" isn't a valid response. SAF or Redknapp or Guardiola would do some things differently. Would they be wrong? It's not that simple. AP is a very good professional coach and the organization of our defense under him has been brilliant. Regarding offense, though, where would we be without Ba's goals? How many were the product of hoofball and/or his own individual skill? You do realize HBA's our second leading scorer this season, right? I just don't see an attacking tactical system out there on the pitch that's designed to use our squad's strengths to consistently produce goal scoring chances. I think that's directly related to AP's trouble figuring out how to use HBA.

Every manager makes mistakes and AP has done some himself, but overall he has made far less than most in this division, when you take into account the squad that we have, money spent and sold and the expectation of the media at the start of the season, let's get real nobody would have predicted us to be 6 points behind Spurs who are 3rd at the this stage of the season.

The squad does need strengthening and ideally we would have bought in another defender, but I wouldn't want us to get anybody who wasn't going to improve the squad longterm for 4 million, as that then comes out of next season budget, so far it has worked out as if we get the 6th place then signing a defender or not wouldn't make us finish higher, don't get me wrong a good loan deal would have done me, or going out and spending big to bring somebody in like we did with Cisse, but in this window you have limited time to get it sorted as well as the extra cash that you pay.

Once the window opens I hope the Toon bring in a few players and a CD to be able to try and push for Taylor position, so atleast we have the quality in a back up, either the new lad or Taylor, we would have enough games to keep everybody happy providing we get the Europa league

I do think next season, the goals will be a bit more spread out, as we will have Cisse. Cabaye will be more settled and then a decent right winger providing goals will mean that we don't have to relay on BA. HBA has been discussed so much, and as I said he will play more next season, but it is down to the work rate that he shows, so unless he plays on the wing in a 4-4-2, and we make the right back totally sitting to cover him it wouldn't work in that formation as Cabaye and Tiote have to be in the CM, so you would then need to play him in a 4-5-1 in behind the forward, and try and set up the team around him like Barca do for Messi, but then it means that Cisse is dropped.

cisse has scored the same number of goals in 4 games as HBA has in 17, before going to the ACoN Ba was averaging about a goal a game so why would we re position 1 of 2 strikers with better strike rates to fit in HBA?

Ba was playing in a more advanced role than HBA against norwich and helped out defensively more than HBA!

Agree a bit with Tuncy on his last post. It would be nice to have a different formation to play against certain teams. We have CM who cover a lot of ground so that would be covered. Plus, as discussed, a lot of players who can play a more forward position. Jonas, HBA, Ba, Obertan who could all play off the striker.

Cant remember which game it was earlier in the season when AP changed things around and had HBA and Jonas playing more central off the striker. They were very good and the opposition didnt know how to handle them.

Maybe AP doesnt have the faith at this point in our FB, who are key to this formation. Its also easy to discuss the formation. Implementing it is another matter.

I can see the formation being changed depending on the team and can see it happening more next season, when you take into account the injuries and the extra African Nations Cup, once BA, Cisse and Tiote go again then can see us playing the loan forward with HBA behind the forward.

Yeah maybe Cisse could play out wide, but then with his strike rate isn't it better to get him up front and then just buy a winger.

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